Bailed out of the business during the tough times of the mid-1990s, but now the managing director of investment development services is happy to be back in the game of building office properties Hayden C. Eaves III quit the real estate business in 1995. The recession in Southern California had been hard on the then-president and chief executive of Trammell Crow Co.’s Western region. After seeing the company through a painful downsizing, he wanted to do something else. But picking up roots he had planted over 30 years proved to be more difficult than he had anticipated, and by the middle of 1996, Eaves found himself jumping back into the business, this time as managing director of Investment Development Services. Much had changed during his short absence. The economy was beginning a strong rebound, and a new crop of entrepreneurs was staking out a little-known stretch of the Ventura Freeway in Conejo Valley. Soon the Internet, software and biotech companies along the 101 Corridor would reshape the boundaries of Los Angeles, the demand for office and R & D; space to accommodate them would skyrocket, and Eaves would find himself in the thick of that boom. With 4 million square feet of commercial space currently under development, IDS last year began acquiring most of the available land in the Westlake Village/Thousand Oaks area, a highly sought-after area where office vacancies are running below 5 percent. With a 100-acre redevelopment project called Conejo Spectrum underway in Thousand Oaks and the 18-acre, 327,474-square-foot Westlake North Business Park under construction in Westlake Village, the company has become the area’s largest developer. Question: When you began to acquire property in the Conejo Valley, did you know that it was on its way to becoming a major center for high-tech businesses? Answer: I have my crystal ball here (laughs). But seriously, I would say that we anticipated that the job growth and, therefore, the need for buildings in that market would be good, and I think the fair response would be that we’ve been pleasantly surprised. I think that it has grown faster and the needs have grown greater than what was anticipated. Q: What led you to conclude that the Conejo Valley would experience a surge in demand? Was it intuitive or did you conduct research? A: All of us have intuition. Experience will give you intuition. You take these facts and you start testing. We talked to city governments. They are aware of the types of people coming into an area. Another source was our financial partners. Probably a third source is the broker community. So when we took the (input from) the city and the equity partners and talked to brokers and our own thoughts, we had our own good feeling that this was the right decision to make. Q: How has the concentration of Internet-related companies affected the types of developments you design and build? A: If you think of a bank, you’d think of an 8-to-5 workday. Internet companies have a tendency to be open 24 hours a day. You need flexibility in design that can accommodate a 24-hour-a-day operation. You might have card access, more janitorial closets so the crew can work in different parts of the building without disturbing other parts. Instead of a few people who will heat a diet rice bowl for lunch, now they’re having breakfast, lunch and dinner there, so you need more kitchen space. Instead of private offices, you need to accommodate cubicles. That affects how you install electricity and phone service, so it’s flexible and can be moved with the walls. Q: Why did you decide to retire from the business? A: The real estate business in Southern California was probably in one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression. And the human toll was devastating. People were losing their businesses, they were losing their homes, divorces it was a terrible, terrible time. I just shudder. I think having gone through that and watching so many good, well-intentioned people who were so hurt, it was hard for me to get back on the horse again. Q: Why did you decide to return? A: I didn’t think I’d miss the real estate business because I’d spent so many of my years there, and I wanted to try something different, but I found out I did miss it. I missed the people. When I left Trammell Crow I was 49, and I didn’t want to retire, but I did want to change the pace of my life and spend more time with my kids and my grandkids and my wife. Q: How did you get started in real estate? A: When I was first married, I was going to night school and working, and I ended up at the Edison Co. working in the sales department. In the ’60s, utilities actually had salespeople going out and saying, “Hey Mr. Builder, you ought to put in electric heating,” because they wanted to sell electricity. So I would call on builders. I grew to really like them. And after two or three years in that business, a real estate developer out of New York called Levitt & Sons, which was a very famous company that grew to prosperity after World War II, building homes, made me a job offer. Q: You’ve also begun a second venture, Hayden Holdings Inc. What are you doing through that company? A: We feel that the Hispanic population will continue to be a very dominant growth sector of our economy and we believe that community as a whole is under-served in the retail business. I formed another real estate enterprise a couple of years ago, Bonaventure Partners, to do neighborhood retail centers in predominantly Hispanic areas. The company really is the three principals (Danny Villanueva and Art Pearlman and myself), and we hire IDS to do our construction. The other thing I do from here is charity work. I’ve been involved in Junior Achievement of Southern California. I was chairman of that organization for a number of years and I’m still on the executive committee. I was vice chairman and on the executive committee of Boy Scouts of America. I’m now just an advisory board member of that group. I’m now an advisory board member of the Pasadena Assistance League, an organization concerned with children and seniors. Q: Why have you chosen those particular charities to work with? A: I was an only child from a divorced family at 12. I really believe that the true value of this great country is its youth, and if you take a look at the upbringing I had, even as a divorced child, there were always people that for some reason just appeared in my life and had a very positive effect on me. And I think part of the wonderful success of our country is the ability for people to have unfettered dreams and know how to work in an entrepreneurial society. If you can give some child the opportunity to benefit that way, that’s why I do it. Q: Do you think there will be another down cycle in the economy like the one we experienced in the 1990s? A: Will it happen again? Yes. Will it happen in the same way? I would say no. I think it was a convergence that was unique in time. I don’t think the pieces of the puzzle will be the same. You have bankers and institutions that are probably a lot smarter for having gone through the downturn. How business is done, how deals are structured, how money is lent is different. I have lived in this business for 30 years and survived, so one of the roles I play is one of pragmatism and caution. We had our annual meeting in December, and my talk to the IDS people was, “Don’t be bashful, don’t be shy, but be prudent and don’t get caught up in the idea that if you don’t buy it, someone else will.”